John Hagee: Megaminister

Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON
New York Times Magazine

Soloman: As a prominent evangelical pastor based in San Antonio, you were recently catapulted into national controversy when you endorsed Senator John McCain for president. Is it true that McCain actively sought your endorsement?

Hagee: It’s true that McCain’s campaign sought my endorsement.

Soloman: How did you feel when critics called you a Catholic-basher and said McCain should reject your endorsement?

Hagee: My statements regarding the Catholic Church have been grossly mischaracterized. I never called the Catholic Church “the anti-Christ” or a “false cult system.” I was referring to those Christians who ignore the Gospels.

Soloman: What about your observation in a recent book that “most readers will be shocked by the clear record of history linking Adolf Hitler and the Roman Catholic Church in a conspiracy to exterminate the Jews”?

Hagee: What I was trying to express was the fact that Christian anti-Semitism — both Catholic and Protestant — contributed to an environment in which Nazi racial anti-Semitism could flourish.

Soloman: But why bring all of that up now?

Hagee: ’Cause most of the world don’t know it. Christians don’t know it at all.

(Continued here.)